(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa House Ethics Committee has unanimously dismissed a complaint alleging Republican Representative Dean Fisher of Montour has violated House rules by voting to commit state funding to private schools and helping start a new school.

Fisher backed last year’s law that created state-funded Education Savings Accounts to cover private school tuition and other expenses. He’s board president of the Tama Toledo Christian School that’ll open next year.

“(Fisher) claims he held up his campaign promises to his constituents…and he claims the complaint is politically motivated and simply a difference of opinion on legislation signed into law,” Representative Anne Osmundson of Volga, House Ethics Committee chair, said during today’s meeting in explaining Fisher’s response to the complaint.

All six Republicans and Democrats on the ethics panel voted to dismiss the complaint.

“I am concerned about what the complainant has stated. It just gives me a bad feeling overall,” Representative Monica Kurth, a Democrat from Davenport, said. “However, I don’t think it rises to a point of being a violation of the ethics code.”

Representative Stanley Gustafson, a Republican from Cumming, is another member of the panel. “I don’t think that Dean Fisher’s personal interest was necessarily the driving force behind the effort to have vouchers for a private school,” Gustafson said.

House rules say members should abstain from voting on bills that are a conflict of interest due to personal gain, but teachers in the legislature, for example, routinely vote on state spending for schools because the bills have broad benefit.

Barbara Kalbaugh of Dexter filed the complaint against Fisher and spoke with reporters at the statehouse. “Fisher’s actions are self-dealing and self-servicing,” Kalbaugh said. “Some would say they’re corrupt and the House Ethics Committee is letting him get away with it and that’s shameful.”

Fisher released a written statement after the committee vote.

“This complaint was clearly just a politically-motivated attempt to smear me,” Fisher said. “It’s wrong to attempt to use the mechanisms of government to attack someone you simply disagree with on policy.”

(Radio Iowa) – Warm temperatures, dry conditions and gusting winds are combining to make conditions extremely dangerous for open burning in many areas of Iowa, with burn bans active in 22 counties.

In southwest Iowa, Glenwood Fire Chief Matt Gray says his department tackled a ditch fire along Interstate 29 on Monday afternoon, but as crews were working to contain the blaze, the winds shifted and the flames quickly spread into a nearby cornfield.

“A bunch of the stuff that was leftover from the previous harvest, the corn and stuff like that, was so dry and with the speed of the wind, it was all we could do to keep it contained,” Gray says. “It got up on a levee and burned through that. There was a bunch of high brome grass in there that burned and there were several trees that caught fire.”

Gray says they requested mutual aid from the Oak Township Fire Department as well as from Malvern once the fire spread. Ultimately, he says the blaze consumed between five and eight acres. Despite recent precipitation, Gray says conditions are still ripe for brush fires.

RED — 22 active burn bans, BLUE — 12 recent ban lifts.

“With the wind speeds and all the dry fuels laying on the ground. That’s basically like pouring gasoline on the ground, lighting it, and letting it go,” Gray says. “It’s very flammable, spreads fast, and with the wind, it’s just hard to control.”

Even in areas where burn bans are not in effect, Gray urges everyone to be extremely cautious, and that includes campfires, grills and farm equipment.

“Basically, you’re not supposed to be doing any open burning at all unless you have a burn permit signed from the fire chief who goes out and selects the area that you’re going to burn,” Gray says. “That’s the only way you can do any type of open burning right now.”

During burn bans, residents are reminded not to throw cigarettes from moving vehicles and to stop burning yard waste, piled tree debris, or other items. Violations of a burn ban can subject a person to criminal penalties and civil liabilities for any damages, losses, or injuries resulting from a fire.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley predicts President Biden’s just-released budget for fiscal year 2025 will need to be rejected in order to, in Grassley’s words, “rescue future generations from even greater economic harm.”

“It’s dead on arrival, D-O-A,” Grassley says. “It’ll never get a majority vote. I just think that it’s an outline that we start with, and presidents propose and Congress disposes.”

Grassley, a Republican, calls the administration’s fiscal and regulatory record “irresponsible,” saying it’s “wreaked havoc on our economy.” Were it to be approved, he says the Biden budget would be sure to yield severe long-term consequences.

“Its contents can be summed up in a single word, let’s say two words: very, very costly,” Grassley says, “three words, I guess.”

Grassley says the president’s spending plan will bring trillions of dollars in tax hikes, saying Biden is planning to let the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire next year.

Sen. Grassley (Radio Iowa photo)

“This would hike taxes for Americans who make less than $400,000 a year, a direct violation of the president’s pledge not to increase taxes on the middle class,” Grassley says. “In fact, you know, this would be the biggest tax increase in the history of the country.”

Grassley says the country needs to reverse course and address the ballooning national debt, though he says the Biden budget would drive up that debt by $16 trillion over the next decade.

“Somebody’s going to be asking me down the road here, ‘Grassley, what are you doing about the $50 trillion national debt we have?’” he says. “Well, we can’t let that happen, but it would happen if this president’s budget went into effect.”

According to Grassley, “thanks to Bidenomics, families will pay thousands of dollars more every year just to cover higher costs of living,” and he says the budget offers “crumbs” for the Pentagon by limiting defense spending so it won’t even keep up with inflation.

(Anita, Iowa) – The CAM School Board, Monday night, acted on approving various Board Policies to come before them for review, along with an AEA Purchasing Agreement for 2024-25, with regard to the Nutrition Program. Superintendent Paul Croghan said they also approved a mowing bid from A & B Construction.

Afterward, they held more discussion with regard to CAM School District facilities.

The CAM School District has gone from three buildings to two and is waiting for a final decision to go to one facility for all grades.

Croghan brought-up the topic of the FY25 School Calendar, but much of the information they need to come up with a plan is dependent on the Iowa Legislature, otherwise it’s in limbo.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – John Deere says it will lay off almost 150 production workers in Ankeny in the coming months. On Friday, 150 production employees were placed on ‘indefinite layoff.’ This will take place through April and May.

Around 17-hundred total employees work at the Ankeny site. Most of them perform maintenance or production jobs.

(Atlantic) The Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce has announced the featured band for ® RAGBRAI event in July. Pork Tornadoes are an Iowa-based band that’s been called the number one party band in Iowa, and a RAGBRAI favorite. Pork Tornadoes will take to the stage from 9-until 11-p.m. during RAGBRAI’s overnight stay in town on July 22nd.

Pork Tornadoes (from their Facebook page)

In addition, there will be live music the entire day. In the coming weeks, the Atlantic RAGBRAI committee will announce a new band each day on the RAGBRAI Atlantic Facebook page.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Montgomery County Auditor Jill Ozuna reminds resident/business property owners that a recent law change (HF-718) requires county auditors to mail a statement to county taxpayers by March 20 with state-specified information related to proposed local government budgets and proposed property tax rates. (Iowa Code 24.2A) The information is for taxes payable in September 2024 and March 2025.

Ozuna says you should receive a statement if you expect to receive a property tax bill in September. The statement is not a property tax bill. It includes data for proposed city, school district and county budgets but does not include proposed budgets for smaller taxing authorities, such as the community college, assessor’s office, townships, and agricultural extension service.
The budget statement will include information regarding school, county, and city proposed tax rates as well as information about scheduled public hearings regarding the proposed tax rates.

The budget statement will include the following information:
• Date, time, and location of public hearings to consider proposed property tax rates for next fiscal year
• Phone number and website (if applicable) for each associated taxing authority
• Current, effective, and proposed tax rate information
• Comparison of current, effective, and proposed tax rates
• How current taxes levied by the school, county and city are distributed
• Comparison of how taxes would be distributed in the current and proposed budget years

Montgomery County Courthouse (Iowa)

Additional information regarding the budget statement will be made available online at https://dom.iowa.gov/property-taxes on or after March 20, 2024.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports a man from Nebraska was arrested this (Tuesday) morning, on a drug charge. 30-year-old Cole Ryan Fitzgerald, of Omaha, was arrested in the area of 221st St./Kesterson Road at around 2:19-a.m. He was charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance. Bond was set at $1,000.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Workforce Development is sending its new mobile Iowa Works center to Perry after the announcement that Tyson plans to shut down the pork plant there. Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend recently talked about the setup of the mobile center. “We can do almost all of the services that we provide at the American Job Center in our mobile unit, and it can go anywhere, you know, river to river, border to border,” Townsend says. She says it allows them to make a quick response if there is an unexpected mass layoff, and they can set up in that community and be there as long as needed. Townsend says they can respond to other events as well.

“If we, God forbid, have natural disaster, we can show up and have a place to operate from, it does have a generator, so we don’t have to plug into an electrical outlet to operate,” she says.
Townsend says it doesn’t have to it doesn’t just go to a community for emergencies. “If you’ve got a career fair or you’re an employer that needs to do a lot of hiring all at once you can sign up and we can come out and feel close to career fair right there at the mobile center,” she says.

Townsend encourages anyone who is interested to learn more about the mobile center on the Iowa Work Works website.